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Compare Prices on Carnival Paradise Western Caribbean Cruises

Nice get away.

Sail Date:
April 2013

Destination:
Western Caribbean

Embarkation:
Tampa

First, boarding was extremely fast, the port is "user" friendly, were dropped by a relative so did not have to find parking since he lived in Tampa.
Have traveled Carnival's larger ships and haven't been on one of the smaller ones like the Paradise for a long time.
Having been used to long buffet lines it was a great surprise to find there were none on this trip, it was a 4 day cruise but the lines were always short and the service friendly from the whole crew.
The food served on both the restaurant and the Lido deck was some of the best we have had on any ship, (the only time we had any real crisp bacon on any cruise)
The omelet station never had a line longer than 4 o 5 people.
The only negative thing we have to say about the Paradise is that it does need a real refurbish, the state rooms are in bad need of up-dating, specially on the bathroom, the only plus there was they do have a larger shower area than the other bigger ships, but the sink lacks a/c outlet More
and storage areas, it had a double mirror medicine cabinet with very little storage room and one of the doors almost ready to fall apart.
The double bed almost impossible to get to on the wall side on account of the life preserve box on the corner of the room were the bed ended. The TV was an old tube type which we had to call to fix since the picture was so dark it could hardly be seen. They did come in a couple of hours and were able to fix it.f On this ship you are not able to check your account on the TV, you have to go to the lobby to a kiosk they have for that.
Carnival is obviously cutting corners all around, only one small toothpaste tube in the "welcome basket" and the nightly bedtime chocolates were from a different vendor since they did not taste as good as the old ones. Also asked the cabin steward for a bucket of ice and was told they were not furnished any longer.
Otherwise the ship was very clean and the crew extremely friendly, the shows were very good, specially the one on the final night.
All in all it was a very good cruise experience. Less